Okay, Libs, Cowboy Up and Watch This

[tradergirl]

http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

 

[swimmer]

Um, OK, so there are some stupid people who voted for Obama. We get it. I''d wager we could find some uneducated, illiterate, under a rock voters who supported every candidate. I recall some ghastly Palin rally videos. As a pollworker I counted 7 write in votes for Homer Simpson and one for Darth Vader...

What I did not get was the poll at the bottom there:
"88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)"

I guess I would get that wrong too and I have a very good grasp on the President-elect''s ideas about fossil fuels.

 

[starsapphire]

Tradergirl, you are soooooo asking for trouble posting this here!!!! I enjoyed the video very much by the way.

 

[panda08]

I don''t think Tradergirl is asking for trouble by posting this. But I prefer items that are more balanced. The people in this video have limited knowledge of who''s in our government. I think a fair majority of people are similarly situated, even the ones who try to stay abreast of current events. I consider myself a fairly educated voter but if someone came by right now and asked me what I thought of Nancy Pelosi, I''d be hard pressed to say anything about her, other than she''s the current Speaker of the House and is a Democrat.

Let''s be fair. If I asked any person who voted for McCain, hey, who''s Mitch McConnell and John Boehner? Will they know who they are? Can they even say what state they''re from and what position they hold, much less express an opinion on the job they''re doing, without looking it up? But I''m sure if I asked them which terrorist Obama''s been palling around with, they''d be able to answer...

 

[starsapphire]

I have to say, given the extreme media bias that there is, since the election, I have not heard much news, I don''t read the news websites or anything. In fact, I really have no idea what is going on in the world!!!! And I think I am much happier. The news if full of negativity and bias.

 

[starsapphire]

Actually, only one guy on the video knew who Bill Ayers is. A "washed up terrorist"!!!

 

[starsapphire]

Date: 11/18/2008 6:59:02 PM
Author: panda08
I don''t think Tradergirl is asking for trouble by posting this. But I prefer items that are more balanced. The people in this video have limited knowledge of who''s in our government. I think a fair majority of people are similarly situated, even the ones who try to stay abreast of current events. I consider myself a fairly educated voter but if someone came by right now and asked me what I thought of Nancy Pelosi, I''d be hard pressed to say anything about her, other than she''s the current Speaker of the House and is a Democrat.

Let''s be fair. If I asked any person who voted for McCain, hey, who''s Mitch McConnell and John Boehner? Will they know who they are? Can they even say what state they''re from and what position they hold, much less express an opinion on the job they''re doing, without looking it up? But I''m sure if I asked them which terrorist Obama''s been palling around with, they''d be able to answer...

Well, yes that is true. I think PS''rs are more educated than most people. I mean, poor people with limited educations don''t sit around talking about diamonds....lol

I know who these people are because of listening to the news.....lol

I had to look up John Boehner though......

 

[FrekeChild]

Just speaking as a Sociological Research Methods student, that video is a joke.

"So on election day, we interviewed the most informed Obama voters we could find."

"We interviewed a dozen Obama voters to see what they learned from the media coverage of the campaign."

The part that made the most sense was the question in which they asked where they get their media influence.

12 Obama voters from one area does not make a representative sample of 66,882,230 from around the country.

This was, I hope, not supposed to be a scientific study. It was full of leading questions, and the way the questions were set up was promoting answers that would reflect negatively on Democratic voters. Also, if this was meant to be scientific, the questions should have been written down, and distributed in survey form, but that doesn't make good TV or a good documentary. If they wanted to lessen that, they should have shown the interviewer. There are often nonverbal cues that the interviewer can have on the interviewee. Without seeing them, we can't know for sure, but because they were, in effect, trying to prove that Obama voters are stupid/there is media bias (and they "succeeded"), there is reason to believe that there was bias from the interviewer.

AKA: Self-fulfilling prophecy.


I'm going to say 3 things:

This was a totally and completely biased report. Zeigler is a self proclaimed conservative/libertarian, and his documentary shows that.

If you were to go interview 12 Republicans and ask the question "What faith does Barack Obama practice?" I'm certain that the results would be just as bad looking for the republican party.

If they had interviewed a PS liberal, their "data" would have been completely skewed, and they wouldn't have been shown.


ETA: I'm sending the link to my Research Methods Prof. She's going to laugh hysterically, and probably write back about the bias, self fulfilling prophecy, and how awful of a "survey/interview" it was.

 

[luckystar112]

While there is no doubt that a survey of Republicans would have comparitive results, it's still an extremely sad outcome.
According to zogby the questions were asked to 512 Obama voters from November 13th-15th.

Their comments:

"We stand by the results our survey work on behalf of John Ziegler, as we stand by all of our work. We reject the notion that this was a push poll because it very simply wasn't. It was a legitimate effort to test the knowledge of voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama in the Nov. 4 election. Push polls are a malicious effort to sway public opinion one way or the other, while message and knowledge testing is quite another effort of public opinion research that is legitimate inquiry and has value in the public square. In this case, the respondents were given a full range of responses and were not pressured or influenced to respond in one way or another. This poll was not designed to hurt anyone, which is obvious as it was conducted after the election. The client is free to draw his own conclusions about the research, as are bloggers and other members of society. But Zogby International is a neutral party in this matter. We were hired to test public opinion on a particular subject and with no ax to grind, that's exactly what we did. We don't have to agree or disagree with the questions, we simply ask them and provide the client with a fair and accurate set of data reflecting public opinion." - John Zogby

The twelve questions were:
1. Before this past election, which political party controlled both houses of congress?
2. Which candidate could not say how many houses they own?
3. Which candidate said they could see Russia from their house?
4. Which candidate had to quit a previous political campaign because they were found to have plagiarized a speech?
5. Which candidate won their first election by getting all of their opponents kicked off the ballot?
6. Which candidate wore clothes that their political party reportedly spent $150,000 on?
7. Which candidate currently has a pregnant teenage daughter?
8. Which candidate said that Obama would be tested in his first six months as president by a generated international crisis?
9. Which candidate claimed to have campaigned in 57 states?
10. Which candidate said their policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket?
11. Which candidate said that the government should redistribute the wealth?
12. Which candidate started their political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground?

It was multiple choice: Palin, McCain, Obama or Biden. So I'm not sure how their answers would reflect negatively on Obama voters, unless of course they did not know the answer. Which they didn't. Question number 3 was a trick question, but they considered it "correct" if they said Palin.

In the end, the survey showed that the people they asked knew more about Palin and her controversies than the controversies of their own candidate. I think it would have been more interesting if they did it on the policies or views of all the candidates, but whatev.

 

[tradergirl]

I know who John Boehner is, along with Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Richard Shelby, etc.

Fiscal responsiblity. It''s what''s for dinner

 

[starsapphire]

The whole point of this post and the video is to show MEDIA BIAS. Which means, that the media played up all the negative things about Palin, and virtually completely ignored anything negative about Obama. The pastor of the Church where he went for 20 years said some bad stuff, and Obama brushes it off, says he "didn''t know" his pastor preached about that stuff......and denounces him and resignes from the church. Oh, ok, all is well now. But that was sooo long ago, that the public forgot about it. Media forgot about it.

This is about Media Bias, what people take away from what the media feeds them. Not everyone is in school taking a class about this right now. A lot of people only know what they hear on the radio or TV. That is what this post is showing.

 

[FrekeChild]

The twelve questions were:

1. Before this past election, which political party controlled both houses of congress? Democrats

2. Which candidate could not say how many houses they own? McCain

3. Which candidate said they could see Russia from their house? Tina Fey/Palin

4. Which candidate had to quit a previous political campaign because they were found to have plagiarized a speech? Biden

5. Which candidate won their first election by getting all of their opponents kicked off the ballot? Obama

6. Which candidate wore clothes that their political party reportedly spent $150,000 on? Palin

7. Which candidate currently has a pregnant teenage daughter? Palin

8. Which candidate said that Obama would be tested in his first six months as president by a generated international crisis? Biden

9. Which candidate claimed to have campaigned in 57 states? Obama

10. Which candidate said their policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket? Obama

11. Which candidate said that the government should redistribute the wealth? Obama

12. Which candidate started their political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground Obama


That''s 1 question for McCain, 2 for Biden, 3 for Palin, and 5 for Obama....

 

[FrekeChild]

Date: 11/18/2008 8:40:34 PM
Author: starsapphire
The whole point of this post and the video is to show MEDIA BIAS. Which means, that the media played up all the negative things about Palin, and virtually completely ignored anything negative about Obama. The pastor of the Church where he went for 20 years said some bad stuff, and Obama brushes it off, says he ''didn''t know'' his pastor preached about that stuff......and denounces him and resignes from the church. Oh, ok, all is well now. But that was sooo long ago, that the public forgot about it. Media forgot about it.

This is about Media Bias, what people take away from what the media feeds them. Not everyone is in school taking a class about this right now. A lot of people only know what they hear on the radio or TV. That is what this post is showing.

Doesn''t matter what it''s about. Its still showing Obama voters in a negative light. If you watch the Fox News, I recall the dudes (H and C and Zeigler himself, I only listened to it, so I don''t know who said it) saying that "THESE were the morons who voted this guy into office", etc etc, negative negative.

There is bias in the questions. There are ways to make it more reasonable scientifically AND to make Dems look even worse, but they didn''t even attempt that.

What is really sad, is that there are people out there who can watch that video and not even understand that the answers to the questions are WRONG.

Oh, and btw, this is also media bias.

 

[luckystar112]

Date: 11/18/2008 9:08:00 PM
Author: FrekeChild
That''s 1 question for McCain, 2 for Biden, 3 for Palin, and 5 for Obama....

Makes sense to me! They questioned Obama/Biden voters.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 11/18/2008 8:40:34 PM
Author: starsapphire
The whole point of this post and the video is to show MEDIA BIAS. Which means, that the media played up all the negative things about Palin, and virtually completely ignored anything negative about Obama. The pastor of the Church where he went for 20 years said some bad stuff, and Obama brushes it off, says he ''didn''t know'' his pastor preached about that stuff......and denounces him and resignes from the church. Oh, ok, all is well now. But that was sooo long ago, that the public forgot about it. Media forgot about it.


This is about Media Bias, what people take away from what the media feeds them. Not everyone is in school taking a class about this right now. A lot of people only know what they hear on the radio or TV. That is what this post is showing.

Where on Earth were you during the primaries? I watched ALL the negative stuff regarding Obama and his pastor (including Fox which says a lot as I can''t stand that station for more than a minute and a half). It got PLENTY of attention and then another round when Wright''s ego decided to start doing interviews. Then it was brought up, yet again, during the general election. Obviously not to the same extent the third time around because it was rehash at that point. Palin was on the scene for what, six weeks? Nothing about her ever got the chance to get old, hence why it was still fresh right up to the election. There was no media bias in this regard. Obama got roasted.

 

[starsapphire]

I didn''t say he did not take any heat for that, but, nothing negative ever seems to stick to him. Seems to just roll off of him.

Everyone has a bias, and you can make anyone look bad. Just watch Letterman sometime!

The media only goes after and attacks the weak, and Obama did not show weakness. Palin was weak and showed it.

 

[FrekeChild]

Date: 11/18/2008 9:40:07 PM
Author: luckystar112

Date: 11/18/2008 9:08:00 PM
Author: FrekeChild
That''s 1 question for McCain, 2 for Biden, 3 for Palin, and 5 for Obama....

Makes sense to me! They questioned Obama/Biden voters.

That right there shows bias. If they wanted it to be more fair, they would have asked even questions about each candidate. Instead, there are 7 questions about the Obama ticket and 4 about the McCain ticket. And all of the questions were negative. Meaning that the questions were all about negative issues. At least half of the questions should have been about the candidates positives as well. Every single question besides the "who has the majority" is about something that people (in general) would consider negative.

All kinds of things are wrong with this thing. I could keep going. But the thing that bothers me most is the blatant bias. If you''re going to do something like this, interview Repubs too. And Independents. Heck, throw in Green party members. Making it an anti-Dem survey from the get-go, interviewing only 12 Dems, it really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This was made by conservatives for conservatives, and the general message (that I''m getting) is: "Look how stupid they are! We are so superior!"

As for the Zogby non-push polls--they obviously weren''t trying to sway the public in one way or another because the election is over. It can''t be a push poll. Besides, I was under the impression that Zeigler did his own thing (the video interviews) and then he had Zogby do it again, with a larger sample. Buuuuuutttt.....being that he had them do it, it was still biased. He just had unbiased people asking biased questions.

I''m with you lucky, I think they should have addressed the issues, not gaffes and tabloid fodder.

 

[Ellen]

Date: 11/18/2008 10:06:00 PM
Author: MoonWater

Date: 11/18/2008 8:40:34 PM
Author: starsapphire
The whole point of this post and the video is to show MEDIA BIAS. Which means, that the media played up all the negative things about Palin, and virtually completely ignored anything negative about Obama. The pastor of the Church where he went for 20 years said some bad stuff, and Obama brushes it off, says he ''didn''t know'' his pastor preached about that stuff......and denounces him and resignes from the church. Oh, ok, all is well now. But that was sooo long ago, that the public forgot about it. Media forgot about it.


This is about Media Bias, what people take away from what the media feeds them. Not everyone is in school taking a class about this right now. A lot of people only know what they hear on the radio or TV. That is what this post is showing.

Where on Earth were you during the primaries? I watched ALL the negative stuff regarding Obama and his pastor (including Fox which says a lot as I can''t stand that station for more than a minute and a half). It got PLENTY of attention and then another round when Wright''s ego decided to start doing interviews. Then it was brought up, yet again, during the general election. Obviously not to the same extent the third time around because it was rehash at that point. Palin was on the scene for what, six weeks? Nothing about her ever got the chance to get old, hence why it was still fresh right up to the election. There was no media bias in this regard. Obama got roasted.

So much so, that it is what caused Obama to deliver the race speech, against the advisement of his campaign advisers.

 

[Demelza]

Date: 11/18/2008 10:23:49 PM
Author: starsapphire
I didn''t say he did not take any heat for that, but, nothing negative ever seems to stick to him. Seems to just roll off of him.


Everyone has a bias, and you can make anyone look bad. Just watch Letterman sometime!

The media only goes after and attacks the weak, and Obama did not show weakness. Palin was weak and showed it.

Here''s another way to look at this: The negativity ultimately didn''t "stick" NOT because of some vast left-wing media conspiracy, but because a majority of American voters legitimately decided that all the fuss over Obama''s "associations" was in no way a reflection of his character or his ability to lead the country effectively. To say that the media weeded out negative reports on Obama is patently false. I realize your side didn''t win, but that doesn''t mean that everyone who voted for Obama is the pathetic, hapless victim of a media conspiracy to suppress negative information about the Democratic candidate.

 

[Demelza]

Date: 11/18/2008 6:27:55 PM
Author:tradergirl
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/

Um, how exactly is this an indictment of Obama or his supporters? Yes, the 12 people interviewed were woefully misinformed (except when it comes to Palin and her wardrobe apparently), but the implication is that this is exclusive to the left-wing and, more importantly, that it's a result of a vast media conspiracy to get Obama elected. This video is pathetic in its utter lack of scientific and intellectual rigor. Did you actually think any of us "libs" would be swayed by an obviously biased video making outrageous claims without offering any support other than 12 random voters and a bunch of loaded questions? I would hope that all of us on this board, liberal and conservative alike, would be savvy enough not to fall for ridiculous tactics like this.

 

[zhuzhu]

Sometimes, it is the intention of the poster that intrigues me more than the contents of the posting itself.

 

[ksinger]

Date: 11/19/2008 12:09:27 PM
Author: zhuzhu
Sometimes, it is the intention of the poster that intrigues me more than the contents of the posting itself.

Indeed...

 

[partgypsy]

Yes. I''m not even sure with their design what question they are trying to answer. Let''s just say if this was an article I don''t think it would be accepted for publication!
Is the question that people who voted for Obama are uninformed. More uninformed than who? We can all agree that the American population is remarkably uninformed group of people. What makes it more confusing is the questions rather than who is on the supreme court, etc, they are asking about controversies that most of us have deemed not relevant to the election, and additionally written that people may disagree with the actual truth of the question).
Second where is the comparison, or the control? For example how do people who voted for McCain differ? Right there I would give them a fail.

 

[luckystar112]

.

 

[MaggieB]

Date: 11/18/2008 8:40:34 PM
Author: starsapphire
The whole point of this post and the video is to show MEDIA BIAS. Which means, that the media played up all the negative things about Palin, and virtually completely ignored anything negative about Obama. The pastor of the Church where he went for 20 years said some bad stuff, and Obama brushes it off, says he ''didn''t know'' his pastor preached about that stuff......and denounces him and resignes from the church. Oh, ok, all is well now. But that was sooo long ago, that the public forgot about it. Media forgot about it.

This is about Media Bias, what people take away from what the media feeds them. Not everyone is in school taking a class about this right now. A lot of people only know what they hear on the radio or TV. That is what this post is showing.

No, it isn''t about Media Bias. Let''s use your example about Obama''s minister. I heard WAY more about Reverend Wright than I heard about Palin''s whacko minister - the witch doctor who accused a woman of causing car accidents with her demonic spells. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/09/palins_new_pastor_problem.html

I can''t answer why the "media" largely ignored both stories, because the media is not one entity, so they didn''t ignore the stories for one reason. Although, I would disagree with the word "ignored." I don''t think either story was ignored, they were just reported and then moved on from. In my opinion, if I were a journalist, I would care more about Palin''s story because she gave her guy the credit for winning public office, which brings him more into the public realm: Palin says, "As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me . . . He said ''Lord make a way and let her do this next step.'' And that''s exactly what happened."

On the other hand, even though there wasn''t a lot of hoopla made about it, I don''t think that was the result of a conspiracy to suppress the story. I also would have expected to hear a LOT more about John McCain''s adultery, his wife''s drug addiction, and his temper - from a biased media. Yes, of course it was out there. Just like all the negative Obama stuff was.

The point is, there are an unending number of examples to prove either side. People consider the news biased if it doesn''t support their opinions.

 

[HollyS]

There is no bias in the questions. They were ''across the board'' and taken directly from the news coverage of each candidate.

However, just as The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno must surely edit his "Jaywalking" segment, to show only the idiots, there is probably a good deal of editing here as well. So, yes. There probably is a certain amount of falseness to this ''poll''. But . . . .

No one, among voters, who could not answer most of those questions . . . . . should have voted. Obviously, they are uninformed on even the ''sound bites''. So, what exactly was their vote based upon? Personality? Looks? Peer association? Race? Pie in the sky promises? My favorite celeb says vote this way? All good reasons to pull that lever or punch that chad.

Oh, and just so we''re clear about the equality of dumb voters, I feel the same way about any Republican who couldn''t answer the questions. If you haven''t paid attention, you don''t have the right to an opinion, IMO.

 

[starsapphire]

I thought it was hilarious when the one girl said she listened to NPR. She must not really be listening.

 

[beebrisk]

Date: 11/19/2008 10:40:32 AM
Author: Demelza

Date: 11/18/2008 10:23:49 PM

Author: starsapphire

I didn''t say he did not take any heat for that, but, nothing negative ever seems to stick to him. Seems to just roll off of him.



Everyone has a bias, and you can make anyone look bad. Just watch Letterman sometime!

The media only goes after and attacks the weak, and Obama did not show weakness. Palin was weak and showed it.

Here''s another way to look at this: The negativity ultimately didn''t ''stick'' NOT because of some vast left-wing media conspiracy, but because a majority of American voters legitimately decided that all the fuss over Obama''s ''associations'' was in no way a reflection of his character or his ability to lead the country effectively. To say that the media weeded out negative reports on Obama is patently false. I realize your side didn''t win, but that doesn''t mean that everyone who voted for Obama is the pathetic, hapless victim of a media conspiracy to suppress negative information about the Democratic candidate.

While I do believe the particular voters in this video are a passel of dunces and I wish they hadn''t voted (yes, they have the right and I would defend it to the death) I also believe that the video was a product of obvious editing to promote a certain view point.

That said, I also believe that the mainstream media had nearly everything to do with electing Obama. I don''t think I''ve ever seen such bias in my life, and I''ve lived through many elections. If Obama was an actor or rock star, we''d call it "hype". The media has a way of deifying those they love and vilifying those they don''t. We see this every day with all kinds of issues and with all kinds of people. Only this time the "hype" was full force, full steam and entirely unstoppable. The difference here is that usually what the media builds up, it usually then tears down. I''ve seen no sign of backlash. Yet.

As for his associations, I wholeheartedly disagree with the statement that they are "in no way a reflection of his character". Of course they are. But the "hype" was big and forceful and ultimately dismissive of Ayres, Reszko and Wright. And the public dismissed them too.

I am not saying that everyone who voted for Obama is a mindless follower and I am not saying his election was due to some vast left wing conspiracy. But let''s face it, the media''s power is so great it can''t really be quantified and in this case it was outright awe inspiring.

 

[luckystar112]

Date: 11/19/2008 7:25:40 PM
Author: beebrisk

That said, I also believe that the mainstream media had nearly everything to do with electing Obama. I don't think I've ever seen such bias in my life, and I've lived through many elections. If Obama was an actor or rock star, we'd call it 'hype'. The media has a way of deifying those they love and vilifying those they don't. We see this every day with all kinds of issues and with all kinds of people. Only this time the 'hype' was full force, full steam and entirely unstoppable. The difference here is that usually what the media builds up, it usually then tears down. I've seen no sign of backlash. Yet.

I couldn't agree more. And the media, without a doubt, will tear him down eventually. But I think it will be a while, because to do it within the next couple of years would only reflect on them poorly. So I think any controversial decisions will get a free pass for a while, unfortunately.


ETA: For someone who stopped replying to my posts she sure winds up right underneath them a lot! lmao!

 

[zhuzhu]

Given the tone of some of the post-election postings, I sympathize with some as it must still be hard to realize who you voted for lost the election.